


APOLLO

by renardroi



Series: Life, Death, and Artemis [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: AI Daniel Jacobi, Aro/Ace Alana Maxwell, Artificial Intelligence, Canon-Typical Violence, Multi, Tags may change with updates, Terrible Sleep Schedules, original ai character - Freeform, takes place before canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-01-29 09:08:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21407701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renardroi/pseuds/renardroi
Summary: Years ago, as part of her thesis statement, she'd uploaded an old AI skeleton that she'd coded back in college. Bits of that had gone on to be in Artemis, and while it absolutely needed improvement, she knew it was relatively stable. Translating the neural map into something useful was already going to make the project unstable on its own, so alpha testing some new skeleton on top of that was stupid. Modernity and advancement could come later, for now she just needs to try things. See what sticks.This is the second longest part of the Apollo project. It's a back and forth between her and her nice new clean room computer; her struggling to make anything stick, and the computer testily throwing up errors.
Relationships: Alana Maxwell & Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler, Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell
Series: Life, Death, and Artemis [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1543270
Comments: 11
Kudos: 23





	1. Maxwell

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a plan for a sequel for a long, long time, so I know where this story is going somewhat. However, motivation is hard to come by when it comes to fandoms that aren't active anymore. Please be patient with me, and if you're really interested in hearing more, nudge me on social media or something! 
> 
> https://mastodon.art/@renardroi for everyday.  
@renardroi anywhere else if you have the patience to wait for me to check it.
> 
> and of course, my love and undying thanks to jude:  
https://intearsaboutrobots.tumblr.com

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Step one is preparation.

It's difficult to hide the project from Kepler.

He's extremely perceptive, and after Daniel's death they've gotten more involved in each other's lives. Their closeness has been a boon while they both mourn, but it also means Kepler has had gratuitous oversight when it comes to her work. He's never nosy, that would be unbecoming and surely ruin his reputation as a cold, unfeeling pawn of Goddard, but he's incredibly careful with Alana. He's convinced her own AI to keep track of how much sleep she gets, how long she spends in the office, and even her caloric and caffeine intake. Artemis sends him little alerts on his fucking phone, for god's sake.

Alana would never force Artemis to get rid of the trackers and the alerts. She's a firm believer in letting AI develop their own personalities and motivations, free from any coded imperative to obey - as long as they don't hurt any innocent bystanders, or worse, draw the attention and ire of Goddard higher-ups. That belief, though, should have prevented the AI from having to follow orders. Giving Artemis the ability to disobey Kepler specifically had been a gleeful and intentional decision.

Perhaps it would have been a subject of study, investigation, but Alana has bigger things on her plate. The monstrous problem of how to convert a neural pathway map, turned to raw data and numbers on a thumbdrive, into...an artificial intelligence. It's hard. The only thing that keeps it just shy of impossible is that she has some experience with Pryce's coding, from working on enough of her little projects, and that Pryce had done a semi-official inquiry into the possibility of utilizing brain scans to bulk up an AI into something formidable. A more loyal agent, perhaps.

When it had become clear that Maxwell wasn't enthusiastic about utilizing dubiously obtained, and primitive - compared to the newest versions - scans to form an artificial intelligence that would almost definitely be unstable and a security risk, Pryce had presumably taken the project underground and developed it herself. Alana only ever got crumbs of information on it via her snooping through Research files; some stripped down machinery blueprints here, a synthetic skin sample there. Nothing overly substantial, but enough to hint at the enormity of the project. It wasn't like she could worry about it though. Becoming irrelevant was the way of things. New iterations replaced old, technology replaced hands; she was more likely to die by the hand of their competition sooner than she was Cutter or Pryce, anyways.

Anyways.

Step one is preparation.

It takes her a week to work up the courage to even touch the thumbdrive again, and once she does her brain launches into problem-solving mode. She studies the data on the drive every which way that she can, making sure she isn't missing anything hidden between the lines of numbers and symbols. When she's satisfied that she has all there is to have, she makes a copy of the USB and puts the information onto an encrypted external hard drive. The hard drive stays at work, the thumbdrive goes into a safe in her apartment.

Not even a day later, she gets paranoid. Goddard knows where she lives without a a doubt, and they know how to clean up. She makes a second copy, and then a third. A little reckless, of course, but this is all she has left to cling to.

Both of the latter copies stay on her person until her and Kepler get a mission out in Greenland. It's not an uncommon place for them to be shipped to, since a fellow tech giant has a huge research complex out in the middle of the ice there. Platinum-Hiro is largely robotics, with a focus on human integration, as well as medicine, so they have plenty of military contracts with a variety of nations and organizations that Goddard has been doing their best to snipe. That, combined with their recent forays into artificial intelligence means increased surveillance on the company, and a couple of arranged accidents for the head scientists.

It's not a big deal, they do this not infrequently. Every couple of months they roll through and stay in a safehouse that Maxwell bought independently of Goddard, that Kepler hasn't seen any reason to mention its existence to their bosses so far, they conduct their business in Greenland and leave. The important thing is that it's the perfect opportunity to hide a few more of her copies. She stashes them in the safehouse and Kepler doesn't comment.

Again, he's not nosy. There are still parts of him that are unreachable, and he's so withdrawn. They've gotten closer, partly because they feel a mutual obligation to Daniel to take care of the people he cared most about, but they're both pretty awful about emotions and all of the little inconveniences of them. Sometimes it feels like their strange kinship should have been inevitable; they're two weird aliens adrift, suffering the humans and all of their messy feelings while wishing they could just get back to work. It's a tempting thought, but she doesn't know how they could have connected if it hadn't been for Jacobi.

He made everything easier.


	2. Maxwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Step two is reconnaissance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been thinking about either including Kepler's perspective into this fic or creating a separate fic to add to this series that would have his POV, but it would only be 2-3 at most so I'm not sure it'd be worth it.

Step two is reconnaissance. 

Alana spends a month parsing the structure of the code that Pryce has made, practically memorizing every line. She gets Artemis to do more scans of the data, studying how it's been stored to make sure there's nothing that she's missing. This part is easier to hide. Kepler is used to her throwing herself into her work for weeks and months, it's easy to assume this is her way of coping with the grief - and he wouldn't be entirely wrong. Maxwell is desperately clinging to a single strand of hope that this might work and that she might speak to her friend again.

On the other hand, though, she's a realist. There are greater odds that this will be a disaster. If all of this fails, she can't let it devastate her into absolute inaction, so she needs to reign in her hopes and her emotions. Dissolve her attachments to the strings of data. None of this is her friend, it isn't her partner, it isn't anything. Daniel is dead and this is work. It's just a project.

She clings to the Apollo designation to reinforce that idea, and of course to shield the whole thing from Goddard's prying eyes as best as she can.

Kepler asks only once what she's working on, when he visits her one night at four in the morning with an early breakfast. His voice is hard and clipped in a way that Alana has learned is his version of hesitant, and he has that calculating gaze that makes it clear he's taking notes on every action. The question is a hand, and she shouldn't bite. There's this delicate thing between them, almost trust, and it's liable to break at the first sign of trouble. It's not hard to guess that Kepler is looking for trouble, looking for any excuse or thorn in his side so that he can cut things off and go his own way.

Alana gets it. Opening yourself up to pain fucking sucks. People are the worst. It doesn't help that Kepler has done something even worse than just trusting her, he actually cried in front of her. However brief it had been, it was still monumental. The night is burned into her memory as vivid as the day Daniel died, the horror of seeing it, her confusion, and a little bit of fondness. It was proof of the trust that she had earned, worked hard for. It was important.

The more they press into each other's lives with honest interest and no lurking ulterior motives, the more they can get from each other. God knows they need whatever that shit is. Warren's got baggage like a Boeing and he's become simultaneously more tight-lipped and more open since Daniel's death. 

She takes the breakfast, the coffee offered to her, even the water bottles he sets down, and she tells him that she's working on something stupid. Another AI. A friend for Artemis. 

When she hears her own name, Artemis lets out a small chime of acknowledgement and surprise. 

Maxwell brings up the project files for him on her worktable, anything labeled with the Apollo designation, except for the original neural pathway map. That particular information has no presence on any company computers, because it's the only thing that still has Daniel Jacobi in name attached to it. This is as honest as she can be with Kepler, and as a gesture of good faith she gives Kepler a tablet with a copy of the project files on it. 

It's a solemn and uncomfortable scene. And Artemis is absolutely no help at all. Her symbol pops up on the surface of the worktable alongside the files, and it's all too clear from the curious, lilting electronic tones that she's pouring over them as well. 

"Taking Artemis's betrayal hard, hm?" Kepler asks, carefully amused. "I understand that her alliance with me hurts, Maxwell, but your AI have a terrible weakness for me. A new one won't make a difference." 

Alana scoffs and throws her tablet pen at him, which he ignores. "It's not a replacement. It's a friend. I'm going to be using some data from Goddard to build up an old deep learning program that I never did anything with, and then finish it into a new artificial intelligence model with specializations in battle tactic learning. That's the plan, anyways." 

She relaxes a little as things proceed normally, Kepler attempting their regular back and forth with the surprising twist of trying to withhold suspicion. 

"A playmate, then." Kepler finally sits down at the table, perching casually on the stool and setting the tablet aside. "Artemis, I forwarded a project outline for a surveillance satellite efficiency upgrade - energy recovery and extensions to the solar paneling. I believe one of the Lares models is to be retrofitted. They want to use this to cover a restock. Have you requisitioned additional space for your Apollo project?" 

"Ugh, great. A surprise missile payload always complicates this shit." Alana retrieves her pen and starts to sift through the documents that Artemis has pulled up for her, already scribbling plaintive notes in the margins. "Not yet. I don't like favors and I haven't decided if the AI would need to be quarantined." 

A large flashing icon appears over their documents, indicating the amount of storage space left on the core computer that houses her AI and connects almost all of the electronics in the lab - from the speakers, the cameras, the displays on the wall and in her worktable. With an audible pout, Artemis speaks up, "It's kind of crowded in here." 

"No, it's not -" Alana starts, but Kepler speaks at the same time. 

"File a formal complaint. Forward it to my office." 

Artemis is quiet for a moment, and Alana thinks at first that she's confused or uncertain, but a second later she backs out of the the worktable and retreats to one of the wall displays. "Done." 

Kepler changes the subject, apparently unwilling to address that he's doing favors for Maxwell's AI now. "Why would the Apollo project need to be quarantined?" 

"Hm? Oh, well, I wouldn't want to do any damage to Artemis. Since I won't be working from scratch, there's no way to be sure what kind of condition the first few attempts will be in. The dataset I'm trying to use could be bad, or I might make a mistake in the coding, so it might be safer to have it quarantined to a computer. No Artemis, no access to internet, and especially no access to our network." Alana picks up the thrown pen and scribbles a few illegible notes onto the worktable as she's speaking. "I don't want to take any risks. Looks like we can fit a three month resupply onto the Lares launch, but we can't keep relying on those launches to carry the payloads, we need a better cover story. Those morons at ASI don't know how to keep their mouths shut. Fraccaro especially." 

"I'll be sure note your concerns," Kepler says dryly. "In the meantime, I want an accurate estimate and plan on my desk in two hours. You get me the Luyten preliminary reports with full analysis by the original deadline and I'll think about giving you a clean room computer." 

"What?! That's tomorrow." Indignant, Alana aims a kick at her boss' shin, only to miss wildly. "I asked for that extension the day after you gave me the reports." 

"It's today, actually. You went above me for the extension, and you don't need it. Do your job, or I'll find someone else to do it." Warren gathers up his things, Apollo tablet included, and heads for the door, smug as ever. "After that, go home."

Jerk. 


	3. Maxwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Step three is groundwork.

Step three is groundwork. 

Maxwell has to go into deep storage. Her little lab has one walk-in storage closet and that closet is filled to the brim with custom made filing cabinets for her external hard drive collection. They're sorted by year, fiscal quarter (with different color drives for each quarter), then project designation. On top of that, multiple projects never share space on a single drive, and she tries to make sure that a single project isn't split across multiple hard drives. The effort is usually worth it, because it never takes her more than a second to find what she's looking for, but she swears one day she'll mechanize the cabinets and hook some kind of basic virtual assistant program up to it. The least amount of work possible is the ideal. 

She goes back a couple of years, and finds the drive with her notes on Artemis. It's small, because it's mostly just project notes and outlines; she coded Artemis almost exclusively on her lab computers, so she has and always will be there. Sure she has backup copies somewhere, just in case, but this is just the project file.

Years ago, as part of her thesis statement, she'd uploaded an old AI skeleton that she'd coded back in college. Bits of that had gone on to be in Artemis, and while it absolutely needed improvement, she knew it was relatively stable. Translating the neural map into something useful was already going to make the project unstable on its own, so alpha testing some new skeleton on top of that was stupid. Modernity and advancement could come later, for now she just needs to try things. See what sticks.

This is the second longest part of the Apollo project. It's a back and forth between her and her nice new clean room computer; her struggling to make anything stick, and the computer testily throwing up errors. 

Alana doesn't realize how much Artemis is paying attention until the AI starts needling her with questions about Kepler. 

"What, um, access level does Warren have for the Apollo project?" She asks, late one evening. "He keeps asking me how the project is going, but I think he's just trying to get information about you. Should I tell him the truth?" 

"About me? Or about Apollo?" 

"Both - it's been months." Artemis is too sharp, much more so than she lets on. And kind. Goddard Futuristics doesn't deserve her help, her contributions. Goddard doesn't deserve most of the AI they have. 

Maxwell sighs tiredly, pushing her keyboard aside so that she can rest her chin on her hands. It has been months, Artemis is right, and she hasn't made any progress. This might be the project that breaks her. This is her job, her profession and the thing she loves most; it should be the one thing that she can do confidently and without the constant and hungry anxiety that hangs over her like a ghost. But if she fucks this up it'll kill her. 

She misses Daniel. She misses Warren, even if he's alive and right there, and even if she doesn't want to. Everything about him is unfortunately and intrinsically linked to Daniel and memories of him, and it makes standing next to Kepler painful. The way he smells, the food he makes, alcohol and oak and marjoram and a healthy dose of gun oil. Her excuse for avoiding him and his apartment is her work - which isn't untrue. She's busy and the Apollo project can only be worked on in her lab. The rest of the truth, however, is always fear. Fear of the silence, and the spaces where Daniel is supposed to fit, and the longer she stays away the worse she knows it's going to be when she returns.

Her guilt and her exhaustion solidify into an uneasy kind of resolve in her chest. "No, I'm going to talk to him. Go ahead and start the closing sequence, and I'll see to tomorrow, okay?" 

Artemis doesn't reply save for a few electronic chirps as things start to turn off. Alana digs through her drawers and her pockets, slow as molasses, until she finds the key that she has for Kepler's apartment. 

It's only nine in the evening; hopefully he's home. 

"Goodnight, Artemis." 

* * *

Kepler is not home. His place looks like it hasn't been touched in the time since she's stopped visiting, but it's not covered in dust. It's maintained, inordinately clean, but nothing is disturbed. No books left on the coffee table or on the counter, no glasses or dishes, no clothes or shoes anywhere. Maxwell checks her phone. 

It's Tuesday. 

It feels like the first time she was here when Kepler wasn't, excepting Jacobi's absence of course. She takes the same steps through the apartment, snooping in the bathroom - the same guns, the same unlabeled medication, the same medkit although it might be slightly bulkier, the same soap that smells like medicine and spice - and then by the bookshelf - all the same except for the absence of a small leather journal. 

She can recall with unprecedented clarity when Daniel had slipped away into the bedroom, and unbidden Maxwell follows the memory of him, half expecting to actually see him in the room. 

Of course he's not there. The room is empty and untouched. She flicks on the lightswitch and chews on her nails, curiosity overcoming her. Where would Daniel look? What was he looking for? Kepler's barely human; he isn't sentimental like people are. He doesn't keep pictures in frames, he doesn't have keepsakes or trophies. No trinkets, save for those with the pure purpose of decoration, and those were scarce regardless. His bedroom has one garish, abstract painting of various shades of dark grey, red, and orange. The dresser has one lamp, and a very rough, understated sculpture of a German Shepherd rising from its stand like smoke. The bed sheets are grey. High thread count, impersonal. 

Kepler has everything to hide, but none of it is here. Maxwell sidesteps towards the only other place she can think of. The closet. She opens the door like there might be a wild animal hiding inside of it, ready to slip through the cracked door and escape. When nothing jumps out at her, she lets it swing the rest of the way open and silently turns on the light. 

Like everything else, clean, organized, and nothing much personal. She's been in here before, she knows where all of Kepler's shirts and shoes are, which drawers have the cufflinks and which ones have the watches. None of Daniel's clothes are here, but that's because, like Alana, he was too lazy for hangars. The dresser was mainly for them, not the closet. 

She starts to close the closet door, but hesitates. If Warren had a secret, he wouldn't have left it out in the open, but would he be cliche enough to hide it somewhere else? In the walls? In the vents? The light on the ceiling puts an odd little highlight on the vent that sits in the back of the closet, peeking out from above the top shelf. 

Maxwell thinks of the burns on his arms and decides she's not cruel enough to continue her search. She concludes that if there's anything stashed away, Warren isn't hiding anything from her, he's just hiding. Some part of himself. After that little lonely little revelation she closes everything up, but before she has the chance to leave the bedroom, she hears the key in the front door. 

Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear.


	4. Maxwell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jude and I talking about this chapter: 
> 
> tiny fancy deer man [06/17/2020]:  
2 coworkers, in a dangerous situation  
keplers got a gun so its not straight!
> 
> Gaming Coffee Mug For Men [06/17/2020]:  
kepler has 2 pistols one is named No and the other is named Hetero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW's for this chapter:  
\- gun  
\- description of injuries and medical care for injuries  
\- extremely brief mention of assault kinda  
\- the usual #problematique relationships lol
> 
> also zzzzz this chapter is so long sorry im touch-starved fight me

Kepler's entrance is quiet and slow. The click of the lock, the shifting floorboards, his nice shoes scuffing against the ground, and eventually the satin sound of a jacket being tossed aside. The last was unusual, more fitting for Alana or Daniel, and their tendency to scatter their belongings through Kepler's home like oblivious puppies. Kepler was tragically neat in the upkeep of his home, never approving of their mess, though he had learned to tolerate it at least while they were there. As soon as they left, however, it seemed like things were vigorously cleaned and put away. It was how they had ended up with so much space for their clothes in his home.

For a moment, Maxwell could feel a creeping anxiety clutching at her throat, compressing her lungs, although none of the usual bad scenarios manifested in her mind's eye. Her mind blanked, in a novel kind of fear of something and nothing. At this point, she was familiar enough with Kepler's moods that her conscious mind should have been catching up with her initial instincts, providing some kind of rationale for caution, but instead she was left confused. 

Cautious in her approach to the living room, Alana stepped away from her hiding place, letting her boots tap on the hardwood floor and her keys jingle as she placed them in her pocket. Kepler had never shot at her on accident, and was supernaturally aware of other people, so she wasn't expecting him to be startled by her appearing suddenly, but it never hurt to make her presence and intentions clear. 

Kepler is still standing beside the door when she steps out, one shoulder just barely touching the wall. He looks like he wants to lean his full weight against it, but won't let himself. Even when injured, it seems like Warren is incapable of letting himself look anything other than composed and unwavering. That or he just didn’t want to get blood on the white walls. 

"I didn't realize you were...on a mission,” Maxwell says, and is shocked to see some amount of surprise cross Kepler’s features. His face hardly changes, if anything only freezing in its usual impassive and neutral expression, but he does stand up straighter. He widens his stance a little as he steps away from the wall, clearly trying to supplement the loss of it without looking like he needs it. 

“You’ve been busy.” He says simply. It has no bite, no anger or regret, it’s just the truth of the matter and Alana appreciates it. Kepler’s head tilts a small amount to the side, even as he makes a great effort to stand up straight. He hasn’t moved from his spot at the door. Blood is pooling underneath him, although it looks like the worst of it has been absorbed by his shirt and suit jacket. The floor is going to have to be scrubbed, Maxwell thinks. 

They stand across from each other for a few moments, both of them considering the other. She takes in the extent of his injuries, and comes up with a few scenarios that would have caused them before she realizes that it doesn’t really matter and shuts down that particular line of thinking. He’s hurt and defensive. She’s used to his withering gaze, but this wasn’t ever her place in their relationship. This was always Jacobi’s purview, getting past the shell of anger without getting bitten and without doing more damage. 

If Kepler weren't standing, she'd be inclined to believe that he was playing dead, what with how still he is. He only breaks his gaze briefly, flickering down to double check that he's armed. The harness around his shoulders that holds his pistols is probably a lost cause as well. The long cuts across his temple have bled into his right eye, down his neck and across his shoulder, and Maxwell doesn't know very much about leather but she doubts that caring for the material includes bleeding on it. 

Eventually she realizes that Kepler isn't going to say anything more. The conversation has concluded in his mind, or he has nothing else to say, so she's left to make the next move. 

She can't leave. Kepler is blocking the exit, and the meager amount of trust that they have between them needs careful tending. Leaving might make Kepler feel better, feel like he can relax and tend to his wounds, but it would be several steps backwards in their relationship. Positive reinforcement, Alana thinks, that's what he needs. No prying, no leverage, no overstepping of his boundaries, those would be steps backwards too. It's a minefield of emotional labor, but they need this. 

"Well." Maxwell uncrosses her arms, and watches Warren's hands twitch. Half a flinch, maybe a quarter. Maybe a mistake, but she's read that open body language can be...helpful in facilitating social interactions. They can't both be defensive. She needs to show that she isn't a threat, so she keeps her arms at her side, and after a moment of thinking she disarms herself. The gun at her waist and the knife in her boot, she sets on the bar next to the kitchen, and then she shrugs her sweater off and drapes it over the bar stool. Next are her shoes, which she kicks off in a bit of hurry, before rolling her pants up to mid-calf. She doesn't know what nonthreatening looks like to Kepler, but it feels right to her, so it's going to have to be enough. 

When she's finished with that, the next problem to solve is getting Kepler to sit down before he hurts himself or passes out. The front door is an exit, so she doesn't want to deprive him of that, and he certainly seems reluctant to move away. Maxwell glances around the room, and turns to the armchair, expensive and clean. Oh well. Kepler can probably afford to replace it, and it will need to be replaced. Gracelessly, Alana drags the chair across the rug, and when she makes it to the hardwood she tries to pick the damn thing up so that it doesn’t make too much sound. By the time that she’s positioned it against the wall, facing the room but turned just a little towards the front door, Kepler’s expression has turned, he looks unamused, and blinks at her. 

It’s difficult to parse the meaning of that, but she forges ahead anyways. The first aid kit in the bathroom is there for this exact reason, so she gestures at the armchair meaningfully, and then turns her back to Kepler to retrieve the kit. She doesn’t have a clear view of all of his injuries, but at the very least the wounds on the side of his head are going to need stitches, so they’ll need the supplies. While she’s in the bathroom, she also takes the opportunity to redo her hair, taking it out of the ponytail it’s been in all day, and pulling her curls into a tight bun to keep it out of the way. She washes her hands after, scrubbing her forearms, though she’s in a hurry. 

When she comes back out, she makes a point not to look too much at Warren, who has graciously decided to sit down in the armchair of his own accord. It's hard to hold back the wave of relief that she feels, even as she approaches with the kit and notices his hands gripping the chair too hard, and his teeth grinding angrily.

Alana backtracks, retreating to a safe distance, back to the bedroom doorway. She looks across to the kitchen, and around the living room, taking stock of what she has on hand that might soothe Warren. There's very little. Food is right out, not only because she knows she can't cook but because there's no chance he'll be convinced to eat. The only other comfort that Maxwell can think of in the moment is his whisky, although the thought of giving him alcohol when he clearly has an injury to his head is a little appalling. Still, she doesn't know how much time she has to set everything right, and it's all she has available to her.

She takes a few halting steps over to the cart that holds the pretty glasses, the decanter of whisky, and, on the bottom shelf, a few assorted bottles of rum and vodka. All very expensive looking. 

Kepler has two pairs of whisky glasses. The glasses he uses more frequently are the sleek, smooth, and slightly square-shaped ones. They're more modern looking to Maxwell's eyes, though she can't exactly call herself an expert in such things. The other pair, she prefers. She doesn't partake in drinking, but she's held the glasses before, enjoying the texture of them. They're round, but the sides have patterns of diamond shapes cut into them, the corners of the diamonds just a little sharp - not enough to cut but very _there_. They seem almost out of place in Kepler's home, feeling sort of mid-century, while everything else is acutely modern. 

The cart as it is, from Kepler's point of view is a little hidden behind the bookshelves, so she pulls it away from the wall, and pours a drink into the glass she likes most, all out in the open where everything can be seen. 

She carries the peace offering to him, and takes a tiny sip of it when she's sure that he's watching her. Gross. His face seems more neutral when Maxwell crouches and places the glass into his right hand, but it's hard to tell, and she's a little more concerned with the painful curve of Kepler's torso. Something is clearly hurting him other than the cuts on his head and his shirt is bloody, torn, and singed in places, but she can't see what it is. 

"Shirt. Take it off." The intention was to be stern, but her voice comes out too soft. The only response she gets from Warren is a small quirk of his eyebrow, and nothing else. He has no intention to take orders, it seems. Exasperated, Alana makes the mistake of reaching for the high collar of his shirt to unbutton it herself, and he strikes like a snake. Their training is so inundated into their everyday, that even as Kepler is pulling her wrist away and twisting it hard, holding it hard enough to bruise, her other hand is going for one of the holstered guns hanging from the harness. As if she'd gotten too close to a fire, Alana yanks her hands back before she exacerbates the problem. 

Warren's voice comes out ragged and angry. His eyes are narrowed. "Maxwell." 

"Okay. Fine." She goes to rub her wrist, notices the bloody handprint left behind, and shakes off the stinging pain instead as she turns away from him slightly. Blue-eyed bastard. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, she stands up and takes a step back. "I'll go first." 

She doesn't know how else to make herself less of a threat, or compromise with such a stubbornly paranoid man, so she does just that. Alana unbuttons her work shirt as quickly as humanly possible, and folds it haphazardly so that she can set it aside. After living with Daniel and Warren for a part of the week and for so many months, nudity was inevitable, but not comfortable. It was much more common for them to be in their underwear, between showers, in the hot summers, or - for her and Daniel - situations like this when they needed stitching up. Kepler usually made it out with fewer scrapes. That or he hid his injuries better than they had. 

So taking off her shirt isn't a problem for her, and it serves the dual purpose of a kind of bartering as well as proving that she doesn't have any hidden weapons on her. When she turns back to Kepler, he is very slowly, and with one hand, starting to unbuckle the harness. He glares at Maxwell, especially when she takes the glass of whisky back from him so that he can finish. 

It looks bad. 

All of the bruises that will turn purple and blue in a day, are fresh and bleeding red. Kepler has to lean forward to peel the wet shirt from his shoulders and Alana winces in sympathy. The movement flexes the muscles over his spine and ribs, and pulls open wounds that are struggling to clot and close. They weep blood anew. 

Most of the damage seems to be to his right side, jagged cuts and probably broken ribs, but the rest of him isn't exactly immaculate. Kepler drops the shirt and guns into his lap, and even goes the extra mile, taking his wristwatch off of a slightly swollen wrist, and tossing it into the pile as well. He promptly goes back to looking like he's about to relax, but never actually will. Alana puts the glass into his right hand again, hoping that the injuries will make him reluctant to move, so he won't actually drink. Worried he'll snap again, she very slowly picks up the things in his lap and starts to set them aside. 

A thought stops her, and she switches gears, unholstering one of the guns from the harness and holding it in her hands. 

She can tell that Warren is actually pissed because instead of the usual admonishing of _Maxwell_, his lip curls and he says, "Alana." 

Ignoring him, Maxwell collects the first aid kit and crowds into Warren's space. She puts her knees on the seat of the armchair, kneeling on it so that she can get close enough to actually stitch things up comfortably. It takes a bit of shuffling but the chair is big enough for it, and as she's getting situated, placing the kit in Warren's lap in between them, she casually takes the gun and gives it to him. She holds it by the barrel, and places in the palm of his left hand, waiting for him to take it. He does, but only after a long second of hesitation. 

"Alright?" She says, once again sounding a little too much like her mother, trying to get him to agree to the terms that she's laid out for the express purpose of making him comfortable while she fixes him. She hates being...parental. 

He doesn't really agree verbally, but she can see him calculating things in his head, trying to see if he comes out on top in a fight. Eventually he shrugs, and that's plenty for her. It's a much more generous deal than he deserves, really, but then again what have either of them done to earn a sense of safety. 

This close to his face, Alana can finally see that something is quite wrong. Something about his eyes had seemed strange before, but she had chalked it up to blood having dripped into the eye and irritated it. That's very much not the case, however. She turns his head gently, and peers down at him, frowning. One of his pupils is blown, dilated too wide, and the other is barely a pinprick. Very quickly she decides that he most likely has a concussion, and hopes once more that it's too inconvenient or painful for him to actually take a drink of the whisky. 

Alana digs through the first aid and comes up with the sterile needle and thread, balancing them on Kepler's shoulder like he's a convenient shelf, and then going back for the alcohol wipes. She's not really sure there's enough to clean all of the blood off, so she conserves them for just the site of the wounds, figuring that the grumpy old man will just have to take a sponge bath in order to get clean. 

Cleaning the cuts on his temple feel like fighting a losing battle, where she wipes away the blood and seemingly out of spite it starts bleeding again. In a true test of her mediocre medical skills, she has to position her hands so that she can tie the sutures, while holding an alcohol wipe in place with the side of her hand so that it absorbs some of the excess blood. Throughout the ordeal, Kepler doesn't show many signs of being in pain. She can see him blinking more, and breathing deeper, but he says nothing and sits very still. Maxwell can begrudgingly respect his pain threshold, if nothing else. 

When she finishes with his head and starts to open another package of suture, thicker than the first, she finally gathers the nerve to question him. "What happened?" 

As long as she keeps moving, keeps her eyes on the bruised and battered shoulder in front of her, she hopes it won't feel like an interrogation. Just a casual conversation between two...friends? Coworkers. Something. 

"They shot the helicopter pilot." He says stiffly, his head still tilting to one side. 

She can picture the rest from that; Kepler having to maneuver around a body or find away to unstrap it in time to regain control - if he regained control at all. "How high?" 

"Not high enough." He rolls his eyes at her, but it looks a little clumsy in comparison to usual. The off-center look of everything Kepler does like this, while injured, is threatening to make Maxwell nauseous with worry. 

She refocuses on the new wound she has to find a way to stitch up, soaking in the information. She cleans the wound carefully, following the longest of the lacerations and tracing the tail end of it to Kepler's collar bone. There's no way she'll get any of the sutures here to stick, what with Kepler being so stubborn about refusing bed rest or breaks from work, so she decides to focus only on the spots that need the stitches most, to give them at least a fighting chance. That's her reasoning anyways. 

Bracing herself against Kepler for the shoulder stitches is a more difficult task. She has to hook one arm over him, leaning her elbow against the back of the chair, and come at the injuries from an angle. Her other arm awkwardly settles down at the base of Kepler's neck, and although he looks irritated, he seems to realize that he can't retaliate without dropping his drink, his protection, or threatening her with a gun. The latter isn't out of the realm of possibility, but they're on much better terms now than they had been a few years ago.

It's stupid, but memories of the three of them waving guns around at each other makes her chest hurt. Her hand starts to shake when she recalls Jacobi coming home from a mission, shot in the leg by Kepler and practically laughing about it, and she has to take breath and pick up the conversation with the living man in front of her again. 

"Was this nearby?" She asks, trying to figure out how he could come home with injuries this fresh if he had been doing the regular sort of mission - the ones in faraway regions, or at least not so close to their headquarters. 

Kepler nods his head a little, and scruff on his jaw brushes against her arm. His whatever-o-clock shadow. He's usually so much more collected than this, pristine in his appearance. There's something rare and fragile about what's between them, and it feels like it's falling apart from both ends. The taskload that she's given herself is a bit much; trying to breathe life into an AI based on her dead best friend, trying to continue her work with Goddard, trying to hold desperately onto the trust of her boss and friend, all without she herself imploding or something. 

As if he can tell that she's thinking herself into a hole, Kepler suddenly speaks again, offering a little morsel of conversation. "The highway." 

Maxwell shoots him a concerned look. "Goddard's going to be pissed. They hate when crap goes down on our turf." 

"They brought it here." His words are clipped and angry. 

Ah. So that's what he's been up to lately. That's the only thing that makes sense. Kepler's been chasing down the sniper that had dared to rear its stupid snake head in their city, while she's been fiddling around with code and crying in the shower. Grief is funny like that, she supposes. Some people just get stuck, stopped standing at the point of loss, and other people fixate on the injustice and the desire for revenge. She's in no position to say that either one is better or worse, though, considering how much of a disaster that she knows Kepler is somewhere deep down. Someone out there shredded his brain into little pieces and rearranged them wrong, scrambled his code, but she doubts she'll ever know who. Goddard and them are probably to blame in some ways, but she maintains the position that there had to be something already deeply fucked up for Kepler to be such a prodigy in his field. 

Would anyone cry for Kepler? Part of doing intelligence for Goddard means no attachments, completely cut off, but she has to wonder... If someone out there somehow heard that Kepler had died in the line of duty - doing his job as a murderer - would they cry? Would a mother or father stand and weep at an empty grave? 

And what about herself - would anyone cry for her? Daniel would have been an easy answer before, but now things were different. Would her mother cry if she knew? It was hard to imagine any of her family having a funeral. Maybe they would wear black, and bemoan their loss to some of their friends, but she imagined it only for garnering some misplaced sympathy. She couldn't imagine them doing the real thing. 

Maxwell meticulously cleans and stitches up what she can of Kepler's injuries. She does not ask herself the obvious next question. 

There are so many questions that she has and won't ask. Sometimes they just aren't productive. They're all just private mysteries, that she tries very hard not to think about for too long. She wants to ask about the faint burn scars on Kepler's arms, wants to ask about the thin scar high on his neck, wants to ask why he hates being called Warren so much. She's seen the way that Cutter uses it to get under his skin, and the exceptions that he made for herself and Daniel. 

Instead of asking questions, she starts to ramble a little. She regrets not turning on the TV or playing music before sitting down to do this. Minutes are going to quickly turn into an hour or hours. 

"When I was a kid, I went to cotillions and debutantes. That kind of stuff." She starts to speak as she's pulling out yet another package of sterile suture thread, and then it just doesn't stop. "I hated them. I hated having to wear dresses, and pointy shoes, and having to get my hair straightened for a dumb party. I hated that even when I was the most presentable, the prettiest version of myself, people still didn't like me. When I was really little, I spent a lot of time hiding under tables, watching the dances or reading, like, Goosebumps or whatever stupid book I had managed to sneak in under my dress. But when you're a teenager, you can't really do that anymore. For a few years I had to really play along with it, do the dances, pretend the cider was champagne, and talk to people who told me to my face that they hated me." 

Kepler's face is blank, simply watching her, with his blue, mismatched eyes. Part of her hopes that the concussion means he won't remember this awkward confessional in the morning. 

"I stopped playing along when two of the boys cornered a girl and pulled her dress up in the middle of the ballroom. I was angrier about it than she was, though. I remember being so scared for her, and then so confused and mad when she and everyone else laughed it off." After she finishes the stitches on his shoulder, she has to sort out their seating again to get at the mess on his ribs. She settles for sitting, sort of straddling, the arm of the chair and having him lean away. It's not exactly comfortable, but she can deal with her back hurting for a couple hours so that she can stop a friend from killing himself with a lack of interest in caring for his injuries. "I watched her cry, by herself, near the end of the party, and then a couple years later she started dating one of the boys that did it. 

"At my debutante, a few months before, I had met this local girl, and her parents wouldn't let her wear dresses, wouldn't let her grow her hair out. And I thought I was in love with her - I wasn't. It turns out when you don't have friends, making a friend feels like what you think love is supposed to be at fourteen. I asked her to be my date at the debutante, and we made this plan to meet up and switch outfits in the bathroom. And we did, and we looked stupid because nothing fit, of course. But it was just...fun. Until we actually went out into the party. My dad was screaming, and my mother was somewhere in the corner having like a heart attack. The girl's parents were so mad, they..." 

Alana paused, focusing her attention on a particularly ruined patch of skin. It looked more like very bad road burn than cuts, and eventually she settled on cleaning the area and just taping a bunch of gauze to it. "Anyways, that night wasn't the first time that my dad had slapped me, but it was definitely the most memorable. After that I basically ran away. I graduated high school early just so I could go to college and disappear. But you probably know about all the school stuff." 

Kepler doesn't speak while she rambles, and only once does he actually try to drink the whisky, which Maxwell immediately puts a stop to. When she runs out of cotillion things to talk about, the silence is much more pleasant. Less tense and strange. She finally finishes all her stitches on Kepler's torso and has to move on to his legs, which requires him to take off his pants. That one's a little harder to convince him of, and it takes her threatening to cut them off for him to actually comply. 

Surprisingly, his legs could look a lot worse. They're bruised to hell and Kepler might have broken something in his ankle, but there's only one slash across the side of his calf that needs serious stitches. She takes a moment very quickly to wrap Kepler's ankle, knowing that he'll definitely not rest it, and then goes back to her meticulous stitching. 

In the middle of it, Kepler catches her off guard, nearly making her jump when he clears his throat. He's looking down at Maxwell, while she bleeds her fingers on needles and thread trying to put him back together, and very quietly says, "I have a sister." 

Kepler is such a private person that it's hard not to freak out. She does a double take, checking to make sure that she actually is talking to her boss and not some random dude off the street, and when she's quite sure it's him she tries to go back to being very casual about the whole thing. "Oh? What's her name?" 

Maxwell ties off her last suture, and looks up at Kepler's face imploringly, but she can tell that he's already clammed up again. One step forward, several steps backwards. Feels like that's always the way it is with Kepler, but somehow they still get progress. 

Is it progress? 

Maxwell runs through her questions again, this time imagining a young woman finding out that her brother has died. Is she just as blonde and blue-eyed as him? She must be tall too, but everything else is mysterious. It's hard to imagine a sister that doesn't have the same stern, perpetually angry features, one that dresses all business, constantly calculates the worth of her relationships and judges if they're absolutely necessary to keep. A whole family of Kepler's is a difficult thing to wrap her mind around. A mother, father, and two and a half kids, all cynical and cruel? Sounds too cartoonish to be true, so maybe Kepler himself was the black sheep; the boy turned to the dark side. She pictures Kepler being raised by a family of blonde hippies and him in the middle still wearing a suit as a preteen and has to stifle a small laugh, which earns her an stern look from her boss. 

After taking care of the most pressing of Kepler's injuries, Alana realizes that her charge probably still has a concussion. There's very little chance that he's ready to clean up some of the blood. She doesn't even know how his vision is doing, if his pupils are so visibly not right. Maybe it's too much to expect him to clean up and make it to the bedroom to sleep. She clambers down from the armchair, and has to pause to stretch the kinks out of her spine. When she looks down at Kepler, he's glaring at her, but she makes a face at him and he purposefully turns his head away, rolling his eyes as he goes. 

She goes to the bedroom first, and does a quick change into pajamas - or...an oversized comfortable t-shirt - and then goes to the bathroom to wet down some hand towels that won't be missed. Kepler's already put up with quite a lot from her, so she spends only a minute or two attempting to wipe away the blood on his side. The funny thing about Warren is that he sits like he's fine, like he's not tired or dizzy, but when she gives him his own towel to clean his hands, she's close enough to see the slight shake of fatigue in his arms. It's only visible when she's well within his personal bubble and in danger of getting clocked. 

In a moment of bravery, she pats Kepler on the arm and gathers up the bloody towels to toss into the trash. "Take me with you next time." 

"Tell me what you're working on." He replies quickly, and gets up from the armchair. 

Damn it all, she thinks. They're both so terrible at letting things stay nice, and cordial. Maxwell avoids his gaze, taking the time to admire her socks while she thinks of what to say. "I will. Soon."

They stand at an impasse for a moment, and finally she takes the initiative and steps away. She cleans and puts everything back where its supposed to go, despite herself, while Kepler stands like a gargoyle in the middle of the living room waiting for her to break or break something. Well, gargoyles might be a bit too creepy for him. But he would definitely be something menacing. Like an attack dog. One that knows it has a leash. 

When she gets bored of the cleaning she wanders back into the living room, and sidles up to the record player that sits in the corner of the room, running her fingers over the dials and the patterns carved into the wood. Kepler stands guard by the coffee table while she looks over the modest little media tower full of records. She has no idea who any of these people are, or what kind of music it's supposed to be. One with colorful circles catches her eye and she plucks it from the shelf. It's covered in words and names she's too tired to read, and she changes her mind, sliding it right back into place. 

He watches her while she does a loop around the living room looking for...something. More proof that Warren Kepler is a person and not a title. That he comes from somewhere. But she doesn't know where to look. She's so caught up in the searching and thinking, that she doesn't notice when Kepler sneaks up on her and catches her by the arm, still angry. 

"You're still here." Kepler grinds out, and the implications is either that she needs to leave or she needs to stop touching his stuff. Hard to tell which. 

"It's movie night." She crosses her arms, daring him to kick her out. "Unless you're too tired to sit still and watch a movie." 

It's a dick move, she knows that, but she'll trick Warren into letting her stay and make sure he doesn't have some kind of brain bleed in his sleep however she wants. He looks about an inch away from murder, but his hands are calm, relaxed as he lets her go reluctantly. Victory. Alana points him to the couch, smiling to herself, and tells him to turn something on while she goes back into the bedroom one last time. She digs through the dresser, all of Daniel's untouched clothes and comes back out with the only sweater big enough to fit Kepler. It's a college hoodie, for a college that doesn't exist. They'd made it a while back as a joke after spending so many hours speculating about his life and it had mostly been ignored. But Maxwell wasn't going to let her injured patient go and put on some stuffy and uncomfortable dress shirt when this was available. 

Kepler sits down in the middle of the couch, making a great effort to look unhurt while he does. Maxwell tosses the sweater to him, takes her usual spot on the couch, and as soon as she does she feels all of her energy run right out of her. Her hands hurt from suturing, her back and shoulders hurt from leaning over, and she can suddenly feel the headache behind her eyes. She sighs and turns sideways, stealing one of the couch pillows to put behind her head and obnoxiously kicking her legs out over Kepler's lap. She expects him to move, or at least tell her off, but he must really be out of it because he does neither. 

The heavy hand on her knee should make her panic, and it does for a second, but she's just a little too tired to be freaked out. A minute passes and nothing changes, just the sounds from the TV, and then several more, and she decides its not bad. Kepler is alive and warm, and her partner. Maybe friend. 

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think!!!


End file.
